Basket Weave Cutting Board for Friends Wedding

A couple of my dear friends recently got married and bought a new house together so this seemed like the ideal time to make that basket weave cutting board I’d been thinking about. He is a Texas A&M ‘aggie’ so i chose purple heart as the field and contrasted it with some maple and thin walnut strips. Unfortunately the only walnut i had in the shop had slot of sap wood, and at the time i figured it would be ok, but next time i’ll definitely use the darker heart wood for better contrast.

I laid everything out so that i would only have 2 different lengths to make cutting them easier. I didn’t take any pictures of the setup, but i carefully put two stop blocks against the table saw fence that would give me the two lengths required. I kept careful note of the maple pieces so i would have a mostly continuous grain pattern and I’m pleased with the effect. I probably could have removed the ‘hidden’ sections for a better grain match, but i’m not sure in the end it would have added that much to the effect.

Despite all my careful measurements, when I dry fit everything together i found some variations and had to adjust a couple pieces to get everything to fit together nice and tight. I’m still not sure what happened but with a little patience i got everything to fit nicely.

This is my first ‘fancy’ cutting board and i’m very happy with the way it turned out and my friends are ecstatic to have it in their new house.

@GrumpyMike, i build a jig with some hardwood glued onto a plywood base set at 90 degrees (forming an L) and covered it in packing tape. I started in the corner and worked my way out until everything had glue on it and started applying clamps. Although i didn’t initially plan on it, i put a smaller piece of Plywood covered in packing tape on top and weighted it down with a bag of led shot because the corners wanted to slide up from the clamps. That was a royal pain because i had to first release the clamps and then put the shot bag in place then re-clamp everything. The bag weighs 50lbs so that was enough weight to keep the edges down.

You do have to work quickly but not crazy. The working time inside my house with Tightbond III was enough to get everything in place before it started to set up. You have to look super closely, but i did have two boo boos where there was a small gap between the pieces. I filled the gap with a little glue and purple heart dust and then sanded it smooth. It’s so small that i doubt anyone but me would ever notice them.

joegard AAAHHH! of course, the top press, that is the answer!! ... Thank you for the reply, and I was going to ask you what your choice of glue was, thanks again for the answer. I too use Tight Bond III … (Remember back in the day when it was either hide glue or Elmer’s ?)

I took trial #3 glue-up out of the clamps last night, and after a bit of 60 grit sanding it leveled out. This morning I packed the gaps with dust from the 60 grit and a bit of CA glut … looks like it will be a keeper.